If climate change is not tackled through appropriate international agreements, policy and resources, we could end up with 1/3 of humanity in extreme poverty

Photo: UN/UNDP Office, Brussels

Maria Koleva, Brussels

23 May, 2013

Maria Koleva

Hun­ger, wher­ev­er it hap­pens, is mor­al­ly unac­cept­a­ble in the age of plen­ty

We must and can reach zero extreme pov­er­ty and zero hun­ger on the plan­et in the time of one gen­er­a­tion

For the time being, cit­i­zens seem to pri­or­i­tize access and qual­i­ty of edu­ca­tion and health

Close-up: Anto­nio Vig­i­lan­te is the Direct­or of the Unit­ed Nations/UNDP Office in Brus­sels since 2006. He was born in Naples, Ita­ly. He start­ed his career with UNDP in 1981. Dur­ing the years he held a num­ber of posi­tions in dif­fer­ent coun­tries and at head­quar­ters, the most recent ones hav­ing been Dep­u­ty Res­i­dent Rep­re­sent­a­tive in Boliv­ia, UN Res­i­dent Coor­di­na­tor and UNDP Res­i­dent Rep­re­sent­a­tive in Bul­gar­ia and Egypt. Mr. Vig­i­lan­te is author of many pub­li­ca­tions relat­ed to devel­op­ment issues in spe­cial­ised edi­tions, in addi­tion to 3 books on oth­er sub­jects. He speaks Ital­ian, Eng­lish, Span­ish and French.

- Mr. Vig­i­lan­te, which are­as of the part­ner­ship between the UN and the EU marked most notice­a­ble out­puts in 2012?

- The sup­port of the EU in 2012 has empow­ered the UN response to human­i­tar­ian cri­sis in the Sahel, Mid­dle East, Mali and Som­al­ia/Ken­ya and per­mit­ted to save tens of thou­sands of lives. For instance in the Sahel alone more than 10 mil­lion peo­ple have been assist­ed and hun­dreds of thou­sands of ref­u­gees have been sup­port­ed in coun­tries bor­der­ing with Syr­ia. The coop­er­a­tion between UN and Euro­pe­an Union has also per­mit­ted to pre­pare fair and trans­par­ent elec­tions in a num­ber of coun­tries, for instance Sier­ra Leone, Burk­i­na Faso, Jor­dan and Yemen. Through the fund­ing from the food facil­i­ty that the Euro­pe­an Com­mis­sion put in place, food secu­ri­ty has been improved for mil­lions of peo­ple in all con­ti­nents. An effect­ive coop­er­a­tion between the UN and the EU took place in response to the secu­ri­ty chal­len­ges in Mali.

- Now, less than 1000 days to the dead­line for achiev­ing the MDGs, how close is their accom­plish­ment giv­en that in the world more than 870 mil­lion peo­ple are still fam­ine vic­tims?

- The MDGs have man­aged to focus the atten­tion of pol­i­cy mak­ers and gov­ern­ment actions in the last years, which con­trib­ut­ed to reach the pov­er­ty reduc­tion and the water cov­er­age goals ahead of 2015 and to reg­is­ter good progress in edu­ca­tion, HIV treat­ment and malar­ia. The envi­ron­men­tal goals and mater­nal mor­tal­i­ty will be short of the tar­gets. Devel­op­ment assist­ance has not kept pace with the prom­ised increase, also due to the cri­sis affect­ing eco­nom­ic growth in devel­oped coun­tries. The slums reduc­tion tar­get has been achieved, but the orig­i­nal tar­get was prob­a­bly not too ambi­tious. Progress has been une­ven across coun­tries, but in the last years there has been sig­nif­i­cant progress, at least on some of the goals, every­where, includ­ing the least devel­oped coun­tries. In gen­er­al, the good news for devel­op­ment over the last 30 years is that nev­er before so many peo­ple have seen their lives improve so dra­mat­i­cal­ly in such a short time. The gap in access to edu­ca­tion and health between devel­oped and devel­op­ing coun­tries has been sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduced. How­e­ver, ine­qual­i­ty with­in coun­tries is increas­ing, espe­cial­ly in the income dimen­sion. The future MDGs frame­work will have to tack­le this equi­ty issue, togeth­er with the sus­tain­a­bil­i­ty one. There is no rea­son for com­pla­cen­cy. A baby born is Sier­ra Leone today can expect to live 35 years less that a Jap­a­nese baby. The per cap­i­ta income of Lux­em­bourg is 153 times that of Dem­o­crat­ic Repub­lic of the Con­go, in pur­chas­ing pow­er par­i­ty terms. The aver­age years of school­ing in USA is 13 years against 1 in Niger. Hun­ger, wher­ev­er it hap­pens, is mor­al­ly unac­cept­a­ble in the age of plen­ty. We must and can reach zero extreme pov­er­ty and zero hun­ger on the plan­et in the time of one gen­er­a­tion.

- The UN asked cit­i­zens from all over the world for their ideas to help shape the future glob­al devel­op­ment agen­da. What do peo­ple demand from the world lead­ers?

- The glob­al con­ver­sa­tion tak­ing place on MDGs, via online and off­line sur­veys, nation­al con­sul­ta­tions in almost 100 coun­tries, and glob­al the­mat­ic con­sul­ta­tions, is unprec­e­dent­ed. This rep­re­sents a new way of arriv­ing at glob­al pol­i­cy mak­ing through bot­tom up con­tri­bu­tions. Mil­lions of cit­i­zens are express­ing their pref­er­en­ces on devel­op­ment issues. For the time being, cit­i­zens seem to pri­or­i­tize access and qual­i­ty of edu­ca­tion and health and hon­est and trans­par­ent gov­ern­ments as the most impor­tant lev­ers for human devel­op­ment.

- How can a new Glob­al agree­ment on cli­mate change be signed in two years giv­en the fact that nego­ti­a­tions are mak­ing just a small-step progress?

- There is no choice: act­ing now means not only avoid­ing a plan­et­ary catas­tro­phe but avoid­ing much great­er costs tomor­row. If cli­mate change is not tack­led through appro­pri­ate inter­na­tion­al agree­ments, pol­i­cy and resour­ces, instead of reach­ing zero extreme pov­er­ty, which is fea­si­ble, by 2050 we could end up with 1/3 of human­i­ty in extreme pov­er­ty, accord­ing to the UNDP Human Devel­op­ment Report 2013. Pov­er­ty and envi­ron­ment, equi­ty and sus­tain­a­bil­i­ty, are inter­linked dimen­sions of devel­op­ment. The cri­sis should not be a rea­son to aban­don inter­na­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty and delay glob­al action to respond to the severe chal­len­ges of this cen­tu­ry. Mov­ing towards an inclu­sive and green­er devel­op­ment is essen­tial and is in itself a poten­tial way out of the cri­sis, as it can pro­mote invest­ments, growth, effi­cient use of nat­u­ral resour­ces and tech­no­log­i­cal progress.

- Is the cur­rent sys­tem of devel­op­ment aid effi­cient enough to chan­nel funds where they are most need­ed?

- Devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion has cer­tain­ly con­trib­ut­ed to the fast human devel­op­ment progress that has char­ac­ter­ized some 40 coun­tries in the south in the last dec­ades and also in the oth­er cas­es. How­e­ver, it has not always been effi­cient and effect­ive. An impor­tant inter­na­tion­al dia­logue is tak­ing place on how to make devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion bet­ter suit­ed to today's needs and increase its devel­op­ment impact. Glo­bal­i­za­tion, glob­al chal­len­ges such as cli­mate change and inter­na­tion­al finan­cial sta­bil­i­ty, increas­ing ine­qual­i­ties, are all fac­tors which make devel­op­ment a much more com­plex and cost­ly task than in the past. There­fore also devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion must evolve and become more stra­te­gic. New approach­es have to be pur­sued, such as the efforts towards uni­ver­sal social pro­tec­tion floors. Ensur­ing grad­u­al­ly uni­ver­sal access to health and edu­ca­tion and meas­ures of social pro­tec­tion can be an effect­ive tool for pov­er­ty erad­i­ca­tion. Exclu­sion from par­tic­i­pa­tion and shar­ing the ben­e­fits of growth and grow­ing dis­par­i­ties with­in coun­tries are prime caus­es of almost all con­flicts, and there­fore need to be addressed more delib­er­ate­ly and con­vin­cing­ly. Enga­ging in wom­en empow­er­ment and gen­der equi­ty, for instance in girls' edu­ca­tion, is prob­a­bly the devel­op­ment invest­ment with highest returns and not enough has been made yet for this. Reduc­ing peo­ple and coun­tries' vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty to nat­u­ral and human made dis­as­ters has right­ly gained cen­tre stage in devel­op­ment strat­e­gies. Increased capac­i­ty to man­age nat­u­ral and extract­ive resour­ces for sus­tain­a­ble human devel­op­ment requires renewed atten­tion. The emerg­ing econ­o­mies should also make their part in inter­na­tion­al coop­er­a­tion, as they start doing espe­cial­ly through south-to-south coop­er­a­tion. The case of those coun­tries which have per­formed bet­ter in devel­op­ment rein­for­ces the con­vic­tion that coop­er­a­tion must respond to nation­al visions and pri­or­i­ties, and that there is no sin­gle mod­el for devel­op­ment. Peo­ple's voice need to be more cen­tral in deter­min­ing pri­or­i­ties, and the pri­vate sec­tor and the research com­mu­ni­ty must be more close­ly asso­ci­at­ed to the devel­op­ment dia­logue and action. But above all, there is a need of pol­i­cy coher­ence for devel­op­ment, nation­al­ly and inter­na­tion­al­ly. Offi­cial devel­op­ment aid will nev­er be suf­fi­cient, if invest­ment and trade pol­i­cies do not con­trib­ute to cre­ate suit­a­ble con­di­tions for devel­op­ment, if ener­gy and agri­cul­tur­al sub­si­dies and cap­i­tal flight con­tin­ue to reduce devel­op­ment effect­ive­ness.

- How does the UN plan to coop­er­ate with the Euro­pe­an Vol­un­tary Corps in Human­i­tar­ian Aid which actu­al­ly starts work in 2014?

- There is an ongo­ing dia­logue between the UN and the EU on this issue, but not yet plans for spe­cif­ic col­lab­o­ra­tion.

- Indeed work is going on in the EU and OECD towards meas­ures to elim­i­nate tax havens and the G20 gave impe­tus to this. The UN adopt­ed an anti-cor­rup­tion con­ven­tion in 2003, entered into force in 2005, and through the Glob­al Com­pact ini­ti­a­tive thou­sands of pri­vate cor­po­ra­tions com­mit to abstain from cor­rup­tion prac­ti­ces, with effects also on tax havens. The solu­tion starts with bet­ter sys­tems of trans­par­ent and account­a­ble gov­ern­ance at nation­al lev­els, accom­pa­nied by trans­par­ent infor­ma­tion exchange between coun­tries. How­e­ver, these instru­ments are far from suf­fi­cient. Inter-state will­ing­ness and capac­i­ty to coop­er­ate, a reform of stand­ard account­ing prac­ti­ces, and an inter­na­tion­al regime to com­bat illic­it flows, tax eva­sions and pro­mote trans­par­ent inter­na­tion­al finance, includ­ing coop­er­a­tive juris­dic­tions, seem nec­es­sa­ry and dis­cus­sions have start­ed. Cap­i­tal flights are extreme­ly det­ri­men­tal for devel­op­ment. The OECD/ AFDB /UNDP Afri­ca Eco­nom­ic Out­look 2012 ana­lyzed the devel­op­ment delay caused by the cap­i­tal flights from Afri­can coun­tries.

- On 31 May in Brus­sels will start the Fifth Mil­len­ni­um Doc­u­men­ta­ry Film Fes­ti­val, which is sup­port­ed by the UNDP. What key mes­sa­ges will it deliv­er to the pub­lic through its small human sto­ries?

- The UN con­tin­ues to sup­port the Inter­na­tion­al Mil­len­ni­um Doc­u­men­ta­ry Film Fes­ti­val since the mil­len­ni­um devel­op­ment goals and the sus­tain­a­ble human devel­op­ment caus­es are not yet suf­fi­cient­ly known, under­stood and "owned" by cit­i­zens. As in pre­vi­ous edi­tions, the fes­ti­val 2013 will make peo­ple know and under­stand dis­tant real­i­ties, become aware of prob­lems and solu­tions, gen­er­ate empa­thy. The Fes­ti­val fos­ters that cit­i­zens demand more account­a­bil­i­ty from gov­ern­ments with respect to their com­mit­ment to vig­or­ous­ly fight the shame of hun­ger, extreme pov­er­ty, child and mater­nal mor­tal­i­ty, lack of access to essen­tial serv­i­ces, the lack of gen­der equi­ty. This year the fes­ti­val invites to reflect on the "com­mod­i­fi­ca­tion" of every­thing, the "mate­ri­al approach to life", where­by every­thing, includ­ing lives, becomes just pro­ducts. The mot­to adopt­ed this year, "every­thing for sale", reflects the con­tents of sev­er­al doc­u­men­ta­ries to be shown this year and invites to reflect on the mean­ing of life, hap­pi­ness, devel­op­ment and progress. Indi­rect­ly it cham­pi­ons the right to dig­ni­ty and claims all human rights every­where for every­one. The fes­ti­val has enjoyed a grow­ing suc­cess and has acquired an inter­na­tion­al rep­u­ta­tion of high qual­i­ty, engage­ment and pro­fes­sion­al­ism. I have no doubt that it will have a long life.